


only fools fall for you

by crossroadswrite



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Kageyama Tobio, Self-Worth Issues, its not that angsty i promise tobio is just v dumb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 12:03:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9490193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossroadswrite/pseuds/crossroadswrite
Summary: Kozume Kenma looks at him like Tobio just shouted every single one of his thoughts. He looks at him like he knows, like he understands, and it scares Tobio like nothing has ever scared him before.“Don’t tell him,” he urges, desperate.“I won’t,” he says, looking away, at Hinata, and then quickly looking back like it physically hurts to let his eyes linger for too long, and Tobio thinksoh."Don’t tell him, and I won’t tell him either.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest shoutout to [LadyDrace](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDrace) and @izbelles for the beta. Thank you so much for putting up with me, I could have not done this without you two.
> 
> Title taken from 'FOOLS' by Troye Sivan, and fic accidentally inspired by [this piece of art](http://tae-the-gae.tumblr.com/post/153591440381/u).

Tobio is in love with Hinata.

This isn’t new information. It’s not even that strange of an occurrence. Very few people meet Hinata and don’t fall in some kind of love with him. Of those, fewer even are the ones that Hinata doesn’t love back, one way or another.

Tobio thinks he’s part of the very small group of people Hinata doesn’t love, and maybe that’s why he feels so cold all the time. Maybe that’s why his fingers are always freezing, no matter the time of the year, maybe that’s why his heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach and settles there until Hinata spares him one of his beaming smiles. Maybe, because he’s so cold, so unused to the warmth Hinata normally gives everyone else, maybe that’s why sometimes just looking at Hinata hurts, makes him want to squint and shield his eyes.

Naturally cold places were never made to withstand warmth, and apparently neither is Tobio.

Sometimes he wishes he was made differently. Sometimes, he wishes he could reach into the core of what makes him Kageyama Tobio, all jagged edges and ice crown and awkwardness, and remake himself. He wishes he could sand his jagged edges into something soft and welcoming, something Hinata could mold his body to. He wishes he could melt his ice crown and wash away his awkwardness.

Sometimes, when he looks at Hinata and how his love leaks through his eyes, the gaps in his teeth and the pores in his skin, pooling at the tips of his fingers, he wishes he could mold himself into the perfect container for all of that, he wishes the hollow and cold places inside of him weren’t so difficult to fill.

Sometimes he wishes he didn’t have to stand on the sidelines, clenching his fists as Hinata makes someone else fall stupidly in love with him. It doesn’t matter if it’s romantically or platonically or whatever other kinds of love there might be out there. Sometimes he wishes watching it happen didn’t feel so much like the resounding noise of a ball hitting the court with no one there to spike his toss.

Tobio tries to shake himself out of it, and forcibly drags his eyes away from the scene. His gaze stumbles on Kozume’s and he stops, breath rattling in his chest, heart squeezing at the look Kozume is giving him.

Kozume Kenma looks at him like Tobio just shouted every single one of his thoughts. He looks at him like he _knows_ , like he _understands_ , and it scares Tobio like nothing has ever scared him before.

His feet are moving before he has a chance to think about it, and before he knows it he’s standing in front of Kozume, _towering_ over him really, fingers looped around his wrist urgently.

“Don’t tell him,” he urges, desperate.

Kozume’s eyes, which had widened with fear soften into understanding.

“I won’t,” he says, looking away, at Hinata, and then quickly looking back like it physically hurts to let his eyes linger for too long, and Tobio thinks _oh_.

He drops Kozume’s wrist. “Don’t tell him, and I won’t tell him either.”

Kozume’s eyebrows climb up, perhaps surprised that Tobio caught that since he’s not known to be the most perceptive of people, but all the same he nods, once, not denying it.

Tobio is in love with Hinata, but, then again, who isn’t.

«»

Kozume and Tobio’s relationship after that is… weird.

They text. First, barely more than once a week. Then, progressively more and more until it becomes a daily habit. Tobio isn’t really sure how it happens or why it happens, but he goes from barely knowing Kozume to checking his phone during breaks for new messages from him.

It’s _weird_ to adjust to having a friend outside of the volleyball club. It’s weird having a _friend_. Period.

Tobio is pretty sure that he’s not even that good at texting. He know he takes too long typing, his fingers slow and unaccustomed to having someone on the other end waiting for his answer. He knows he’s awkward, he knows that cog inside of him that is slightly out of place and makes him tick a little differently than other people, makes his emotions jumbled and confused, also makes him say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

It’s _definitely_ weird. But it’s also… nice.

This is the first time Tobio had anyone who was really there, and took the time to send him texts and wait for his clipped words back. It’s the first time he has anyone there to send pictures of the stray cats he sees in the street and doesn’t dare pet, because all things small and cute hate him. It’s the first time that he has anyone there willing to listen to the collapsed disaster zone that are his feelings.

“You’ve been on your phone a lot,” Hinata points out, one day on their way home, when Tobio had reached for his phone.

There are no texts from Kenma, but Hinata is looking at him too intensely, and Tobio always feels stupid and inadequate when that happens, always feels like all the secrets frozen behind his teeth would melt and spill from his mouth if he let Hinata look long enough.

There are no texts from Kenma, and because Tobio doesn’t want to do something stupid, he sends him one, impulsive and desperate.

 _He’s looking at me with his stupid eyes and I feel like running away_.

They do that sometimes. Talk about Hinata. Mostly, it’s done on impulse and started by Tobio, when his need for warmth is too much and he can’t bear it.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Kageyama-kun?” Hinata asks and Tobio almost flings his phone into the middle of the road.

“What. Don’t be stupid.”

The idea of him with a girlfriend is laughable. The fact that Tobio is so wrapped up in Hinata that he would never consider anyone else is a little tragic.

“Then who are you texting so much? I asked everyone and they said they weren’t texting you.”

“I have other friends,” he tries to defend.

The phone buzzes in his hand with a new text and he opens it reflexively.

_You should start bringing sunglasses for when looking at him gets to be too much. I did it during the last training camp._

Tobio can’t help but snort a little bit, having a faint memory of Kenma wearing sunglasses indoors to everyone’s bewilderment.

“Are you sure you don’t have a girlfriend? It’s okay, you can tell me if you do.”

“It’s just Kozume-san,” Tobio snaps, tired of this conversation already.

Hinata’s face brightens up. “Oh, Kenma! I didn’t know you two were friends, that’s nice. Tell him I said hi!”

Tobio clenches his teeth, and tries not to resent Kozume too much or think about how Hinata immediately warmed up as soon as he heard the name, and how it leaves Tobio feeling colder.

 _He says hi_.

 _I can feel you thinking stupid thoughts, Tobio._ And then. _Say hi back._

«»

They progress to skype calls after Tobio almost flunks math and Kozume offers to help.

After that he’s not Kozume anymore, he’s Kenma, and Tobio has to get used to shaping someone’s first name with his tongue and teeth, the concept feeling foreign and making something in the roof of his mouth itch.

He stumbles over it for the two first weeks, and then the tripping of his tongue becomes a slight heat at the top of his ears as Tobio gets used to having a friend.

It’s still a little hard for him to get used to Kenma’s shy but blunt honesty, or his quiet smiles, or the way he listens to Tobio’s half sentences and just _understands_. To get used to having someone who doesn’t balk at his awkwardness and sees it for what it is, to get used to someone who knows what it means to have hollow parts inside of you that fill with debris and choke you up, clog your throat and turn honest words into sharp clumsy jabs.

“Tobio, you’re spacing out again,” Kenma’s soothing tone crackles through Tobio’s shitty laptop speakers, making him blink at the laptop until his eyes refocus.

“Sorry,” he coughs out, tapping his pencil on the math worksheet Kenma has been helping him with.

“How was practice today?” Kenma asks on the eighth tap of the pencil.

“Terrible. I flubbed three jump serves and got hit with a ball in the face,” Tobio says.

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Kenma says, resting his chin on his palm so he can press down on his smile with the tips of his fingers.

“It’s Hinata’s fault.”

Kenma tilts his head a little and blinks lazily at where Tobio’s face is in his monitor. _How_? His eyes ask.

“He forgot his shorts,” Tobio finds himself muttering, cheeks heating up. “And apparently he has friends on the girls’ volleyball team that had ordered an extra pair of shorts.” The tapping of the pencil becomes a little more frantic, keeping time with Tobio’s speeding heart. “They’re spandex.”

Kenma’s eyebrows climb so high in his forehead, they’re currently flirting with his hairline. His eyes a little more wide and attentive then they had been before. He lets this little sound that gets distorted by Tobio’s speakers escape. Something between consideration and being overwhelmed.

Tobio drops his pencil and reaches for his keyboard, opening up the group chat the team shares and dragging the pictures Tsukishima and Noya had taken of Hinata to Kenma’s conversation.

Kenma’s chin slips from his hand and his teeth clack together.

“He’s shitty at receives which means he drops the ball and has to pick it up. A _lot_ ,” Tobio adds dispassionately, trying his best not to think about Hinata’s thighs and how they bring a desperate sharpness to Tobio’s pining, and subsequently make shame spill on his fingertips.

Kenma’s head follows the path of his arm and smacks on his desk.

“Why is he like this.”

“He jumps around a lot,” Tobio remarks, picking his pencil back up and resuming the measured tapping.

Kenma peers over his arm up at him with an unimpressed look, and Tobio can pinpoint the exact second his eyes get caught on the pictures again by the way they widen and Kenma’s cheeks get significantly redder.

“I think I’m done for today,” Kenma mutters, dropping his head back into his arms.

“I was done when he walked into the gym like this.”

“RIP in pieces, Tobio.”

“What,” he frowns, squinting at Kenma. “What does that mean?”

Kenma peers up again, this time with a softness around his eyes and in the twist of his mouth. “Don’t worry about it. Get this off my screen and let’s finish your math problems before it’s past your bedtime.”

Tobio glowers, squinting dangerously at Kenma through his webcam, but Kenma just placidly blinks at him and keysmashes until the pictures of Hinata disappear from the chat window.

«»

_Did you get my package yet?_

Tobio turns the small package in his hands, glowering at its unassuming form. He doesn’t like the idea of receiving a gift outside of his birthday, he doesn’t like the obligation he feels to give something back, and he doesn’t like the pressure it builds in his chest, the gentlest of warmth that brews in his stomach.

He closes his locker and leans against it, peeling the tape apart and prying the box open.

Tobio blinks down at it, and then he blinks some more, carefully retrieving it from the package and turning it in his hands, inspecting the sunglasses and frowning at the twin word ASS stamped across the lenses.

And then he can’t really help it. He laughs. It bubbles up from his throat and whistles through his lips without his permission, making Tobio snort disgustingly, and as soon as it leaves him something crashes against the lockers, disrupting the quiet chattering in the hall.

Tobio turns to see Hinata sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching his nose and wide eyes turned on him.

It’s almost violent, the way the heat crawls up Tobio’s face and settles uninvited across his cheeks.

“Hinata, dumbass, what are you doing! Stop messing around, you’re going to be late!”

“Shut up, Kageyama! I was just surprised and I tripped!” Hinata shouts back, getting to his feet.

“Surprised by what? Your lack of ability to not trip on _everything_?!”

“You laughing, that was weird, Kageyama. You never laugh.”

Tobio flinches and turns away with a snappish, “Shut up.”

He reaches for his phone and punches out a reply. _It made me laugh,_ it says, the words an accusation.

“Are you sick or something?” Hinata pushes, materializing next to Tobio, bouncing on his toes to try and see over his shoulder.

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

 _Good._ His phone buzzes. And then, _You can peel off the words and wear them normally, I figured you would need it._

“It was _weird_ ,” Hinata insists, still trying to see what Tobio is holding. “You should do it again,” Hinata adds, as an afterthought.

Tobio puts a hand on his face and shoves him away.

“Don’t be _shy,_ Kageyama-kun,” Hinata says with a little smirk.

Tobio makes a disgusted noise at the image Hinata makes with his crinkled eyes and the clever twist of his mouth and the way the afternoon sun is creating a halo around him, making him seem untouchable. So Tobio unfolds the sunglasses and slides them on, turning away before the calling heat of Hinata’s skin becomes too suffocating.

“Hey, Kageyama, they look good on you,” Hinata laughs, a brief flash of light catching the side of Tobio’s face, accompanied by the telltale sound of a fake camera shutter.

“Don’t just take pictures of people without asking, dumbass!” Tobio yells, making a grab for the phone and glaring when Hinata is able to keep it away from him.

“I’m just going to-“ Tobio lunges again and Hinata ducks under his arm and dances away “-show it to Kenma!”

“Stop being an idiot, Kenma gave me these,” Tobio says, lunging for the phone again and snatching it away. He jams his fingers against the screen until the picture is purged from existence and then he grins, feeling vindicated.

“Kenma gave you those?” Hinata says and the way his voice sounds somewhat displaced from its usual lightness makes something stand at attention in Tobio.

He hands the phone over, letting it fall in the limp hand Hinata extends.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Tobio frowns, tilting his head at Hinata’s expression. “It’s a joke.”

“A joke? You can joke?”

“Shut up,” Tobio snaps, turning to walk away and wondering why he still even tries, and it’s as he’s gripping the biting cold metal of his locker that he realizes Hinata’s worried about Kenma liking Tobio because of the gift. It’s as the bend of the metal digs into Tobio’s gripping hand, that he reminds himself how Hinata offers Kenma his wide eyed adoring smiles and his free time.

He grits his teeth, the sunglasses suddenly feeling heavy and uncomfortable over the bridge of his nose, so he yanks them off and throws them in the locker, slamming the door and walking away.

This is stupid.

The way his chest is constricting is stupid, the whiplash of emotions hitting him is stupid, Hinata is stupid, Tobio is stupid, these useless feeling in his heart as fragile as a badly built house in a land of earthquakes is stupid and he’s tired.

He’s tired and his fingers itch to hit something, set the perfect toss, listen to the satisfying sharp sound of a volleyball hitting hardwood floor. So that’s what he does. He goes into practice and throws his all into it, like he usually does, until his hands are red and hot and his lungs are constricting because of physical exertion and nothing else.

«»

“Why don’t you tell Hinata you like him?” Tobio finally snaps, later that week.

Kenma startles, fingers slipping on his console and letting it land on his desk with a thump.

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing,” Tobio says immediately. “I was just- he- and you- so why?”

Kenma tilts his head for a moment, consideration written into his features, before they clear into tentative determination. He picks his console back up and resumes his game.

“I wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. He might like me, but not in the way you think he does, and if he was around me all the time, he’d get tired, and then he’d get miserable because he wouldn’t know how to break up with me.” He pauses, fingers jamming against the buttons of his console a little more forcefully than usual. “It’s better like this. Hinata is just… too much for me to handle on my own.”

Kenma’s eyes dip up to where Tobio is on his screen, before they dive back down into his game.

“That’s stupid,” Tobio tells him and Kenma laughs, this tiny wrong sound.

“Yeah. It’s pretty stupid.”

And that’s that.

«»

People mistakenly say that Tobio makes bad decisions, but in reality it’s a little bit the opposite. It’s like he’s _made_ _of_ bad decisions, as if he has bad choices buried deep in his bone marrow and sown into his lungs. He breathes them and they rattle inside of him every time he takes a step.

He doesn’t willingly make bad decisions, he doesn’t walk into bad choices, it’s just that they seem to simply be part of him, and he thinks that’s why he’s found himself in this situation.

“It’s really good, Tobio. You should try it sometime,” Kenma finishes, eyes still lit up and a small curve still tilting his lips.

“I’m not good at video games,” Tobio says, glaring at the picture of Kenma on his laptop and trying to figure out why he feels so wrong footed and annoyed, and why he has to keep compulsively swallowing around a lump in his throat.

Kenma sighs and folds, the energy seeping out of him in one single breath. “I’m sure there’s at least one you’re good at,” he says, blinking sluggishly from where he’s rested his head on his arm, chin slightly tilted upwards so he can see Tobio.

A strand of hair falls over his eye and Tobio’s hands twitch with restrained action.

He stares for longer than is appropriate and remains silent, a familiar itch under his tongue that lets him know he’s about to discover something. He can feel the anticipation swelling inside his ribcage and pushing his heart into a frenzied rhythm, as his brain works towards realization.

“I could help you find something you like, there’s some good sports games,” Kenma hums, picking the strand of hair that had fallen on his face and sweeping it behind his ear, nose scrunching up in annoyance adorably, and _oh_.

_Oh._

_Oh, no_.

Tobio’s face flames up and before he knows what he’s doing, he has the top of his laptop in an iron grip and is slamming it closed.

He blinks at the wall where his screen had been once, twice, three times, before the enormity of what just happened hits him and his body gives up on holding him upright.

He smacks his forehead on his desk, hisses a little at the impact and decides the pain is punishment for being so utterly stupid.

«»

He messes up at practice again. This time, it was bad enough for Suga to approach him with a worried smile and Daichi to tell him to go take a break and sit outside for a bit, since there was clearly too much in his head.

And that’s where he finds himself, with his back pressed against the gym’s wall, feeling the balls reverberate through the hardwood floor and hum through the structure of the building.

Tobio tries to take deep breaths, pressing his palms harshly against his closed eyelids and grinding his teeth until his skull hurts and he feels like one wrong move of his jaw might shatter him.

A deep breath in, a deep breath out, and he releases the tension he had been holding between his teeth, lets his palms fall away from his eyes. His vision slowly refocuses on the real world, dragging its heels through seconds and minutes until Tobio can see every detail of his beaten up old gym shoes again. They’re scuffed on the side, the shoelaces are falling apart into a million thin threads. There’s dirt on them.

Maybe they’re why he’s been doing so badly today.

Tobio curls a little more on himself, drawing his knees closer to his chest and letting the scrape of his shoes on the ground settle him, reconnect him to here and now.

A deep breath in, a deep breath out.

He grinds his heel into the floor rhythmically, like the tapping of a pen, just to hear the pebbles crunch and scrape beneath his foot.

Thinking isn’t exactly Tobio’s favorite activity, and it seems particularly grueling now that he has to consider this brand new way in which he’s fucked up. How he’s such a selfish king that he couldn’t be satisfied with the Hinata shaped holes inside of him, he had to go and build new ones, Kenma sized, still freshly open and stinging.

It’s been two days since he slammed his laptop down on Kenma. Two days since he tried to rationalize that it had been a fluke, for Kenma to prove him wrong with a frown and a throwaway comment sown with underlying care and one of his very rare smiles. Two days since he considered that maybe he had stopped liking Hinata, and this was his new personal hell, maybe he was finally healing from the messy state of affairs with which Hinata had left him, only to be proven wrong with Hinata’s cheap heartfelt smile and determined reassurances.

A deep breath in, a deep-

“Kageyama, can I have a word with you?” Suga asks, walking towards him like one would approach an abused cat.

“I’ll do better. Please forgive me for disturbing practice,” he rushes, blind panic seeping through his solar plexus and curling viciously around his ribs. “I still want to play, I-“ His fingers press against his knees viciously, scrambling for something to cling to.

“Kageyama, no one is going to forbid you from playing volleyball. I’m not here to scold you, that’s Daichi’s job. We’re worried about you. You’ve been acting strange these last couple of days. Is something the matter?”

Tobio drops his eyes back to his beaten up gym shoes, grinds his heel against the ground.

“No.”

“Ah. I see,” says Suga, moving in to sit down beside him on the floor. “And are you sure about that?”

“Suga-san, there’s no one to set.”

“Don’t avoid the questions your senpai asks you, Kageyama.”

He’s quiet.

“Hinata is worried about you. He says you’ve been acting weird lately. It’s affecting how you play, Kageyama-kun, so why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.”

Tobio takes a steadying gulp of air in, clutches his knees until his knuckles turn white.

“Suga-san, have- can you-“ he glares at the ground, frustrated with himself and with the situation and with stupid Hinata and stupid Kenma and- “can you like two people at the same time? Is it- is it _normal_?”

Suga stills, startled with Tobio’s words, and the seconds in which he’s silent scrape across Tobio’s already frazzled nerves until he finds himself considering gauging out an eyeball to avoid the rest of this conversation.

“You can like whoever you want,” Suga says. “You can even like multiple people and date them, as long as they both know the situation.”

“But isn’t it selfish? Just one person should be enough, right? Why- why does it have to be two?”

Suga gives him a smile, the reassuring, calming one that has no dangerous edge to it. It’s the kind of smile you’d expect to precede a fond pat on the head.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a little bit too much love to give, and there’s nothing wrong in being able to love two people the same way and want them close to you. It’s called a polyamorous relationship. You should look it up on the internet before you bring it up to the people you like.”

Tobio snorts, the idea of _telling_ Hinata or Kenma about his feelings completely ridiculous, something shrouded in mist, with its defining edges blurred out, giving it a dream-like quality that is as captivating as it is unobtainable.

Suga gives him a sideways glance.

“Why don’t you go home earlier today? I’ll tell Daichi-san that you aren’t feeling well and you’ll have time to get your head in on straight.”

“I can-“

“Go home, Kageyama. Look up what I told you about, and think about what you want to do about it. Even if you think it’s hopeless, you never know, Hinata and Kozume might surprise you.”

Tobio jerks at Suga’s words, disbelief shaping his mouth into an ‘o’ and denial trying to stumble its way out of his throat but getting lost on the way to his mouth, leaving it hanging open in stunned silence.

Suga smiles again, this time it’s the one that makes his eyes squint, the one that has just a little hint of danger behind it.

“It’ll be nice not to have my kouhai outshine me during a practice, but we’re going to need you tomorrow, so be careful on your way home, Kageyama.”

Tobio doesn’t manage to come up with anything to say until Suga is inside, so he does the only thing he can. He gets up. He goes home. He starts researching.

«»

Tobio looks at the text displayed in his phone until the characters start blending together and his eyes become unfocused, mind racing to assimilate this new information and settle comfortably in the knowledge that he’s not _wrong_. Tobio doesn’t know if he could bear being unique in this sense too, he doesn’t know if he could bear being the only one in the entire world capable of feeling like this.

For how much he likes to stand out and be _better_ when it comes to volleyball, the truth is he just wants to blend in when it comes to every single other aspect of his life. He just wants to make friends, and smile properly, and not stay up staring at his ceiling for hours on end, throwing a volleyball up and letting the rubber be the only thing that connects him to the real world as his mind wanders, feeling slightly detached from reality.

He blinks and throws his phone onto his desk, twisting his body in his bed until he can bury his face in his pillow. He stays like that until it gets too hard to breathe.

Tobio turns his face towards the wall and stares at it, blinking sluggishly as he tries to catch up on the impact this will have on him and on Kenma and Hinata. He expects to feel joy, giddiness, but all that comes is the relief of not being an outlier, and resignation.

He has a name for what he feels. He has a name that makes him part of a small group of people connected by how they feel romantically towards others.

That’s it.

This doesn’t change anything else for him.

Hinata is just as unreachable as he’s ever been, pouring and pouring his love out, a constant crashing of waves that bathe everyone in warmth, but somehow shy away and recoil at Tobio’s reaching hands. Hinata is still beautiful, and Hinata still doesn’t like him, barely tolerates him.

Kenma is just as pityingly untouchable as Hinata, sitting on the other side of the mirror that Tobio is looking into, playing at understanding and commiseration when he has Hinata reaching for him and smothering him in warmth and Tobio is left in the bereft cold on his side. Kenma is still beautiful, and for how bitter Tobio is that Kenma could have Hinata, if he wanted, he’s also the first person to look back at him, to reach out and smile and be a new kind of sun, in his own way.

Tobio’s breath starts rattling in his chest, whistling through his airways violently. He pulls his blankets over his head and squeezes his eyes shut until it hurts, until he falls asleep.

«»

Things go back to normal.

He throws himself into volleyball and argues with Hinata, he still talks with Kenma and pretends the way he smiles doesn’t make Tobio want to throw up.

It’s not that hard of a task to accomplish, Tobio doesn’t even have to paste on a fake smile since he’s never wore one on his face. He just has to keep going, keep breathing, progress, adapt. Measured breathes in and out, in and out.

“There’s a long weekend next week,” Kenma says, apropos of nothing, eyes firmly glued to his PSP’s screen. “Shouyou invited me to come visit and spend the weekend.”

Tobio chokes on his own spit. Kenma’s eyes lift from his console, brows furrowed in concern, before they dip back down.

“I was thinking,” Kenma starts, then stops. Frowns harder at his game, mashing the buttons, knuckles going white where they’re bent around the stark red of his PSP. He tucks his hair behind his ear, puts his console down, takes a deep breath and picks it back up, placing it strategically in front of his face.

“What,” Tobio prompts, keeping his tone measuredly flat.

“I was thinking we could… hang out. Or something.”

Tobio frowns, eyes squinting at Kenma’s image in his laptop. “What.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to, sorry, I just- whatever, it’s-“ Kenma trails off and tries to completely hide behind his gaming console.

Tobio frowns harder. “I just don’t understand why you would want to hang out with me when you have Hinata.”

Kenma goes very still for a second. He lowers his PSP and Tobio immediately wishes he hadn’t said anything so he wouldn’t have to see the softness around Kenma’s eyes and how they’re expertly straddling the line between pity and sadness.

“You’re my friend too, Tobio. Of course I want to see you,” Kenma says.

Tobio can feel his face warming up, burning the tips of his ears and letting something warm and gooey swirl in the pit of his stomach.

Kenma seems to catch up to what he said and his eyes go wide. He hides behind his console again and goes back to smashing buttons.

Tobio has words scratching their way up his throat, but his tongue feels swollen and heavy, and the words get clogged on their way out until he swallows them back down.

 _I’m your friend but not like Hinata_ , he wants to say. _You want to see me but you don’t need to see me like you do Hinata,_ he wants to stammer. _I’ll just get in your way, Hinata won’t want me stealing your attention,_ he wants to spit out.

His ears are still hot and his tongue grows thicker in his mouth.

“Okay,” he manages to spit out.

 _Okay_.

“I’d… like that,” he adds and starts to feel nauseous.

Kenma peeks over the lip of his console and nods, mouth hidden by it, but his soft reserved smile carved into the corner of his eyes.

“Cool,” he says.

“Cool,” Tobio parrots, feeling incredibly selfish and stupid for saying yes, but like he’s said before, he’s had bad decisions carved into his bones since the day he was born, so something like this was bound to happen.

«»

It rains unexpectedly when Kenma comes to visit.

Tobio stares out of his window at the downpour, blurring the scenery outside and settling a certain comfort into his bones. He’s always had a hate-love relationship with the rain, one part of him being soothed by it, the other annoyed by the inconvenience it brings.

Hinata is supposed to be picking up Kenma from the station around now. They’re supposed to go to his house and do whatever it is Kenma and Hinata do when they’re alone. Tobio tries not to dwell on it too much.

He sighs, bored, and rests his head on his chin, blinking at the droplets of water racing down his window and letting the monotony of it soothe his rattled chest.

He’ll get to meet Kenma tomorrow for the first time since camp, and the thought makes his hands weirdly clammy, forcing him to wipe them on his sweats, finally pushing away from the window and spreading out on his bed.

Tobio grabs the volleyball he keeps next to his bed and starts throwing it in the air, passing to himself, only letting it graze the tips of his fingers.

He’s got nothing to do until then, but to sit and feel like his skin is fastening around his flesh, suffocating him and making him feel inadequate and ill footed, making him wish that it would just be tomorrow already so he could get over this.

Tobio’s phone beeps, startling his rhythm and making him send the ball tumbling away from his reach.

He huffs, annoyed, and reaches blindly for it.

Kenma’s name flashes across the screen and Tobio has to take a moment to just stare as his brain tries to process this information, before he slams the necessary buttons to open it.

 _We’re stuck at the train station_ , _Shouyou forgot the umbrella._

Tobio’s fingers are moving before he gives them permission to.

 _I’ll be there in twenty minutes_.

He’s hit send before he can doubt himself and is halfway through the door when his actions catch up to him and make him hesitate, fingers wrapped around the only umbrella he owns and sneakers kissing the doorway.

The cold metal of the doorknob seems to climb up his arm and wrap around his throat, chilling him.

_What is he doing?_

This is stupid. He shouldn’t submit himself to this, not when he knows that it’ll only darken the Kenma and Hinata shaped holes inside of him until they turn black and start consuming Tobio from the inside out until there’s nothing to him but the ability to set.

This is stupid.

He grips the umbrella’s handle until it squeaks, lets his feet shuffle until he’s all the way out the door and can pull it firmly shut behind him, sealing his decision.

Tobio opens his umbrella and sets for the station.

This is stupid, but no one has ever accused Tobio of being smart.

«»

Watching Kenma and Hinata hover around each other is exactly as jarring and painful as Tobio expected it to be. Hinata with his open affection and adoring eyes, bouncing around Kenma, eyes darting from Kenma’s face to the Nintendo Kenma is holding loosely between his fingers. And Kenma with his more guarded demeanor, the smile that touches his eyes and barely the corners of his mouth, as he alternates between focusing intensely on his game and sneaking as many glances as he can at Hinata.

Tobio closes his umbrella violently, shaking stray droplets of rain into the mostly dry platform, as he makes his way towards them, wondering what it would feel like to have Kenma or Hinata smile at him like they smile at each other. He almost sees a glimpse of it, when he catches Kenma’s eye and Kenma lifts his face to greet him.

It’s just a split second, where that gentle soft smile holds for Tobio, the gentle comfort of it beckoning, before Hinata shouts his name and Kenma flinches at the jarring sound, features harshening into a frown.

“What are you doing here, Kageyama!” Hinata asks, squinting suspiciously at him, sliding in front of Kenma as if he needs to protect him from Tobio’s arrival.

Tobio grits his teeth.

“I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t such a dumbass and remembered to bring your stupid umbrella!” he shouts back, shaking said umbrella in Hinata’s direction, splattering him with rain.

Kenma’s fingers touch Hinata’s arm fleetingly, shy, reticent. “Shouyou,” he starts with a placating tone, “I asked Tobio to come get us, it seemed better than waiting for the rain to stop.”

There’s another thing that irritates Tobio: how Kenma uses first names so freely and comfortably. It’s paradoxical, his feelings towards that particular quirk of his. He hates that he can say Hinata’s first name when Tobio will never be invited to do it, but he loves how his name fits around Kenma’s teeth and rolls off his tongue.

“He only has one umbrella and my house is _really far_.”

Kenma frowns, lips pressing together and eyes nervously jumping from him, to Hinata, to the duffel bag by his feet.

 _This is stupid_.

Hinata droops, features going lax with sadness and just a little regret.

“I’m sorry, Kenma! I was so excited to meet you that I forgot my umbrella.”

 _This is stupid_ . No. _They_ make him stupid.

“You could- the rain- at my house,” he drags the words out of his throat, clumsy and already anticipating the amount of suffering he’ll have to endure.

Kenma and Hinata exchange a look, dragging the moment through dirt until Tobio feels wrong and something starts pressing down on his chest.

“If you don’t want to, you can-“

“Sounds like a good idea,” Kenma interrupts.

“I’ve never seen Kageyama’s house,” Hinata says, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet and leaning towards him. Tobio feels the need to put a hand on his face and push him back, giving himself a little reprieve from Hinata’s enthusiasm, even if his enthusiasm soothes the unsure aching that had started in his chest and sets him at ease.

Tobio gives himself a moment to take a deep steadying breath, as quietly as he can.

“Let’s go, it’s still a bit to walk and it’s getting dark.”

Kenma pockets his Nintendo and shoulders his duffel bag.

Hinata takes it off his shoulder with a grin and a flick of his wrist waving Kenma’s protests away.

“You must be tired from the train and I don’t mind!” He whirls towards Tobio. “Hey, Kageyama, do you have an extra umbrella, I don’t think we can all fit under just one.”

“I have a hoodie I can walk in the rain if I need to.”

“What! Then you’ll get sick, stupid.”

“Dumbass,” Tobio throws back reflexively. “How else do you want all three of us to fit?”

“We can make two trips! That way no one gets wet.”

“That would take too long,” he argues.

Hinata opens his mouth, shoulders drawing up, chest puffing out to grow as tall as he can, ready for a fight.

Kenma puts a hand on his shoulder and Hinata stills, deflates, goes pliant.

“We can all fit,” he says calmly.

Tobio frowns.

“Umbrellas weren’t made for three people. We can’t-“

“Tobio,” Kenma says, eyes pinning him to where he stands, willing him to listen, not really giving him any other option _but_ listening, really. “There’s room for all of us.”

Kenma enunciates the words perfectly, each of them laden with meaning and something hopeful, something that Tobio _needs_ to understand without being told. He feels the impact of them, urgency and reassurance all in one.

“Okay,” he concedes. “But don’t blame me if you get wet.”

Kenma spares him a smile, small and private, before he turns to Hinata, cocking his head in question.

“If you say that we can fit, we can fit! We’ll huddle, it’ll be fine, and then we can reach Kageyama’s house even quicker!” Hinata adjusts the strap of the duffel bag and then looks at Tobio, tilting his head slightly as if trying to fit pieces of a puzzle together.

He squints in concentration, hums to himself before he launches forward and loops his arm around Tobio’s pressing himself to his side.

“Careful dumbass, don’t just leap at me!” he shouts, shaking his arm slightly. Hinata grips it tighter.

“You agreed to this Kageyama-kun,” Hinata says and smiles up at him, seemingly delighted. Tobio wants to punch him in the face and kiss the barely there freckles across the bridge of his nose.

Kenma is much shyer when he takes Tobio’s other arm, hesitating and hovering until Tobio offers it to him. Then, much like Hinata, he seems to have no problem in pressing himself to Tobio’s side.

Tobio takes another deep breath, waits for the situation to fully register, feeling his cheeks heat up violently when his body keeps sending him signals of how close both Kenma and Hinata are. His cheeks and ears itch slightly. He feels like throwing up.

Instead, he starts walking, opens his umbrella to protect all three of them from the rain, and tries as best as he can to ignore how Hinata keeps pressing impossibly closer, as he leans over to talk to Kenma. Tries to ignore how his breath hits Tobio’s neck when he tilts his chin up to say something to him.Tries to ignore how Kenma has an iron grip on his hoodie and keeps hiding his face against it when looking at Hinata gets to be too much.

He ignores that, and he ignores how warm he starts to feel, like it’s spreading from his cheeks to his chest, expanding in strong pulses that move in time with Kenma’s and Hinata’s chatter, and above all, he ignores the part of him that is whispering about how _good_ this feels and how if only Hinata and Kenma felt the same, he could have this for as long as they allowed him to.

Walking home with Kenma and Hinata, under the cover of their umbrella, which creates a little pocket of comfort that belongs only to them, feels a lot like everything Tobio’s been missing and couldn’t name.

«»

If Tobio thought sharing an umbrella was the sweetest kind of torture, he could never have anticipated how actually hanging out with Kenma and Hinata would feel like.

It’s painfully easy to be in the same room as them, and Tobio wishes it wasn’t. Tobio wishes it was awkward and unbearable, he wishes the friction between their personalities burned uncomfortably against their skin, putting them on edge. He wishes they weren’t so easy to love, he wishes they didn’t fit so perfectly together.

It feels right, to sit in his living room, Kenma and Hinata in borrowed hoodies and borrowed socks because they had ended up getting their shoulders wet, and with three of them walking tightly linked, avoiding puddles was impossible.   

It feels right, to sit on the floor, back pressed against his couch, the Mario Kart intro song humming through the television speakers, the familiar weight of his Wii control in his hand, as Hinata sticks his tongue out in concentration pinning Kenma’s hair back with hairclips he found in his pocket. It feels right to watch Kenma do the same for Hinata, and it’s expected for Hinata and Kenma to turn to him, hair clips in hand like weapons and smiles on their faces, varying in width but matching in warmth.

It feels right, playing Mario Kart together, on Tobio’s pristine living room floor, the rain mingling with the sound effects of the game and their easy banter.

Tobio has no idea what to do with himself or with how well this seems to be going.

“Ah, Kageyama, I need to use the bathroom, pause the game.”

Tobio hits pause and lets his head drop to the couch cushions. “Hurry up and come back, I’m winning.”

“No, you’re not, we’re just on the first lap!” Hinata says, scrambling up and running into the hallway.

“Does he know where the bathroom is?” Kenma asks, peering over Tobio and into where Hinata had just disappeared.

Tobio blinks at the ceiling. “No, because he’s stupid.”

“But you still like him,” Kenma says, leaning back against the couch, softly touching his shoulder to Tobio’s, a friendly nudge.

Tobio can immediately feel his face igniting with color.

“So do you,” he accuses.

Kenma hums in acknowledgment, pink dusting the bridge of his nose and cheekbones. He starts fiddling with the wrist strap on his control. Tobio is caught staring at him, Kenma’s eyes snapping suddenly to find his and gripping him.

He looks intensely focused. “I think,” Kenma starts, cheeks growing a shade darker. His jaw works for a moment around half words, like he has to practice the shape of them with his tongue first before he can say them. “I think, you like me too. Maybe.”

There’s a moment of complete stillness where Tobio feels his breath getting clogged in his throat, blood rushing violently to his ears, drowning out the sound of anything else. He can’t hear how his breath wheezes slightly. His tongue shapes around words he never uses.

“I’m sorry.”

Kenma flinches back, eyes snapping to Tobio’s face, startled. He can see the pitying lines in the corners of his mouth.

“It was an accident,” he tries, looking away, feeling six all over again and looking up at his father, standing tall and disapproving, holding Tobio’s volleyball like an accusation, broken glass at their feet.

He knew this was a bad idea. But he also knew Kenma would find out, eventually. After all, Kenma’s praised for reading people like Tobio’s praised for quick tosses.

“Tobio,” Kenma sighs, and the fondness and sadness in his voice pulls Tobio’s face up again. “I like you too.”

Tobio can hear his mind screeching to a halt, reordering his world, expanding it to something where those words can fit. Tobio’s eyes widen, and his breath hiccups a little bit in his lungs. He opens his mouth, something crashes behind him.

He flinches, jerks back from where he had been subconsciously leaning forward, turning an annoyed look to whatever crashed behind him; his heart stops.

Hinata stands in the entryway of the living room, one of decorative figurines his grandma gifts them with shattered on the floor. Hinata’s face looks a lot like what Tobio thinks a collapsing galaxy would look like, color slowly seeping out of his eyes, expression void and contorted into something earth shattering.

“Shoyou,” Kenma starts and Hinata’s face morphs into a beam, lips stretched wide, eyes squinted shut. Tobio hates that smile on sight, he hates how bleak it is, how so very clearly fake.

It’s not a smile as much as it is Hinata closing his eyes and gritting his bared teeth at the situation.

“I’m very happy for you,” he says, voice pitched high with cheer and grating unpleasantly against Tobio’s ears.

Hinata squeezes his eyes closed tighter, forceful and fake like Hinata never is.

It’s wrong. It makes Tobio want to throw up a little.

Kenma gives Tobio a look and somehow they’re moving in perfect sync. Tobio’s normally thick-headed, he has no awareness of social cues and body language. He’s horribly _awkward_ , to the point of alienating everyone around him, and even now he’s not sure Hinata cares for him.

But Tobio loves Hinata. And Tobio loves Kenma.

Kenma has grown to be his friend before anything, and Hinata the other half of his genius, his _partner_ . And maybe that’s why this time around he knows when to move, knows what Kenma will say, knows what _he’ll_ have to say to stop Hinata from crying.

He’ll lose both of them in the process most likely, but if it means Hinata stops smiling in all the wrong ways he’s willing to give them up to each other.

“Shouyou,” Kenma says again, using that soft deep voice that is so soothing. He places one hand on Hinata’s cheek, startling his eyes open, and startling the tears he was containing out of him. “It’s not what you think. We- we both li-li-“

“Like you. We like you,” Tobio spits out, swallowing around the lump in his throat and barely fitting the words past his teeth, the shape of them heavy on his tongue.

It wasn’t fair to let Kenma be the only brave one.

Hinata frowns. “B-but I heard you- you said-“

“You can like two people at the same time,” Kenma says. “In the same way, and you can want to date them both.”

“You can do that?” Hinata asks, disbelievingly, voice so small and heartbreakingly hopeful that Tobio sways forwards, pulled in by the foreign need to comfort.

“You can do that,” Kenma reassures.

Hinata blinks and fresh tears make paths down his cheeks. He sniffles, wiping away at his face. “I thought- I thought I was being selfish. I liked you two so much and I thought there was something wrong in my head, I couldn’t decide- but- but I _can_ date both of you. I’m so glad,” he sniffles again, wipes his nose on his sleeve.

Tobio takes a moment, his brain doing its best impression of a record scratch as it reels, trying to understand this. It’s such a foreign concept that Hinata could like him as much as he likes Kenma.

He had been expecting for Hinata to be sad over losing Kenma. He had been expecting Kenma choosing Hinata over him. He had been expecting having to leave the room and hide in the bathroom, trying his best not to collapse on himself, as the two of them finally got together.

He had _not_ been expecting this.

He hadn’t been expecting Kenma taking one of his hands and Hinata taking the other, beaming his brightest smile yet, squeezing his fingers like a lifeline.

“I’ll be in your care,” Hinata says, tears still smudging the corners of his eyes, happiness giving his cheeks a ruddy glow.

He hugs them, and it takes Tobio a couple of moments to register it happen before he makes his arms go up and hug them back, a tight little circle of mutual love.

And then he collapses, a little bit. He can feel it in the way his shoulders draw up, and his arms clutch desperately at these two boys who like him back, impossibly, unbelievably.

He feels those little holes, all consuming and encompassing things, collapsing on themselves until there’s nothing, and then they expand again, a million different bright things taking their place. Things that are a little lighter, that don’t constrict his heart and push it against his rib cage, things that are hopeful and make his breath stutter and his eyes tear up, just a little bit.

“Are you crying, Kageyama-kun?”

“Shut up,” he says and crushes Hinata against his chest. “This is your fault.”

Kenma looks up at him, understandingly and says nothing, gives him the tiny private pleased smile, and reaches over Hinata to scrub at one of Tobio’s cheeks with his thumb.

He’s not even crying, not really, his eyes are just a little more shiny than usual, and you can’t really blame him when he has to adapt to a new world configuration in which the things he wouldn’t dare even dream of are true. It’s a bit of a shock to his system, and it will take time adjusting.

But right now he just stands here and gets acquainted with Hinata’s and Kenma’s weight on him, how they smell together, how they hug, how affection seeps into Tobio from both sides. He takes a moment to just _enjoy_.

And then Hinata pulls back and asks, “who gets to kiss who first?”

«»

No one kisses anyone this time, because Kenma is anxious and Tobio almost popped a blood vessel thinking about it and Hinata couldn’t decide who he wanted to kiss first.

So they go back to playing Mario Kart.

They unpause the game, sit awkwardly next to each other, testing out the boundaries of this new thing, until they’re comfortable enough for Hinata to spread one leg on top of Tobio’s so Kenma can sit between his spread legs, slightly angled to rest on Tobio’s arms, making him lose most of the matches.

He can’t say it’s not a little awkward. There’s hesitancy where there wasn’t before, there’s aborted actions, and half gestures and hands that travel the distance only to get lost somewhere on the way to their destination.

They’re getting used to each other, and trying to figure out how exactly they fit together.

If Tobio had to compare it to anything he’d say it’s a little like assembling a piece of furniture without the instruction manual. You know all these little pieces slot perfectly together, but you can’t quite figure out how.

It takes a lot of trial and error.

The get it right, eventually.

He’s still Kageyama Tobio, he’s still jagged edges and melting crown and awkwardness, but now he feels a little more settled in himself, now he doesn’t feel as if he has to remake himself to accommodate others. With a little help he’s grown to see he’s not the only one made up of jagged edges. Kenma has them and Hinata has them, and somehow they all fit perfectly together. And he’s not the only one made of awkwardness and aborted intentions.

Now when Tobio bares his teeth, it’s not to grit them against all the things he can’t say, it’s not to hiss his frustration out between the gaps of them. Now it’s a smile, still awkward, still a little scary, but softening.

He’s learning to have a secret smile, a small privilege that only Kenma and Hinata are privy to, much like Kenma and Hinata have their soft smiles that are just for him. A little secret shared by three.

Tobio is in love with Hinata, and Tobio is in love with Kenma, but then again who wouldn’t be. There’s so many things to be in love with.

It’s how Kenma tucks his hair behind his ear and frowns down at his games.

It’s how Hinata hugs impulsively and spontaneously, smile always sunny side up.

It’s how Hinata’s hands are always a little too warm and sweaty in his and how Kenma’s are dry and as cold as Tobio’s.

It’s how Tobio’s shirts hang off their frames.

It’s how Hinata kisses their palms before a game whenever he can, for good luck.

It’s how Kenma sometimes just _knows_ and leans on Tobio’s shoulder, worms his way under his arm until Tobio shakes himself out of his weird funks enough to hug him.

It’s how Hinata is good at baking but terrible at cooking, and Tobio is good at cooking and terrible at baking, and Kenma is mediocre at both.

It’s how they all move into the same apartment at college and only really use one bedroom.

It’s how Tobio loves Kenma and Hinata and they love him back like he never expected it to be possible, how their affection and fondness hums, almost sentient, between them, soothing any jagged edges and helping them fit, click together almost perfectly.

Tobio is in love with them, but then again, who wouldn’t be.

**Author's Note:**

> tfw ur first fic for ur favorite haikyuu pairing isn't ur normal dumb fluff and is on the heavier side, even tho these boys are legit the holiest thing on the face of this earth,,,,,,,,,,,,,, rip
> 
>  
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> [tumblr here if u wanna just deck me in the face for making the softest boys sad](http://crossroadswrite.tumblr.com)


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